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| The rustic Four Mile Hut, I had one of my best nights on the AAWT here tonight. |
Some days on the track are good for the great scenery, sometimes for nice company, at other times the weather makes everything feel joyous and sometimes it’s pushing my limits that makes for a great day. Today turned out to be a great day for none of those reasons specifically, yeah the scenery was nice enough but it was hardly stunning. The only conversation that I had was with myself, so it wasn’t great company that made today a good one either. The weather for a fair chunk of the day was bordering on dangerous, so that wasn’t what made the day a memorable one, and while the day was hard enough it didn’t really push my limits so that wasn’t it either. No it was something really simple that made today one to remember, the highlight of today was spending the afternoon and evening in the beautiful, rustic Four Mile Hut. Sheltering in this old hut, with the fire going as storms lashed at the walls was one of my favourite memories of my whole AAWT journey.
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| Leaving Happys Hut this morning things conditions were looking a little ominous. The AAWT runs along the ridge line in the distance, but the direct route up is a bit of a scrub bash. |
With last nights hut mates being on a bit of a race to Melbourne there was no sleeping in for them this morning, they were up at 4am shuffling around, cooking breakfast and stoking the fire. I was a little bit more relaxed and stayed in my sleeping bag trying to steal a little more sleep, eventually everything went quiet and my new mates had disappeared into the early morning half light, somewhat ominously for them I reckon around ten minutes after the last rider left it bucketed down for the next hour, I certainly made the right call staying in the sleeping bag this morning I think. With a bit of daylight starting to filter through the cracks in the wall and the rain not drumming on the roof anymore I decided that all good things must end and emerged from my down filled cocoon. With only myself for company I enjoyed pottering around the hut, taking my time over breakfast while I cleaned up a bit (that was another thing with the mountain bike guys, I don’t think that they realised the etiquette when it comes to using a hut, I didn’t see much cleaning of the huts or fire wood gathering going on).
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| Crossing back over Happy Jacks Plain I got my last look at the distant Mt Jagungal. |
Way to soon really I decided that I’d better pull on my smelly walking clothes and make a mile this morning. Leaving Happys Hut this morning I had a choice again, to rejoin the AAWT I could climb up to the ridge to the north of me or retrace my way back across Happy Jacks Plain to rejoin the AAWT where I’d left it yesterday. Climbing off track up to the ridge top would save me around 5 kilometres and should be a lot quicker - in theory. The problem was that the bushfire regrowth was meant to be pretty thick and there were plenty of entries in the log book backing that up. I also had Anne’s words ringing in my ears, when we’d crossed paths back at the border she’d warned me about this little off piste short cut. With plenty of rain around which would of guaranteed me a miserable time pushing up hill through soaking wet scrub, I decided to retrace yesterdays route in along the old fire track, it might have been longer but I wasn’t really in much of a hurry today anyway and at least I wouldn’t be scrub bashing.
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| Heading back towards Tabletop Trail this morning along the grassy Happys Hut Trail. |
By the time I’d reached Tabletop Mountain Trail and rejoined the AAWT the rain had arrived, climbing up onto the ridge top I managed to get a photo down to Lake Eucumbene and a bit of a glimpse across to Tabletop Mountain before the weather got serious and I stashed the DSLR away in its dry bag. Now when I say that the weather got serious I mean it, trudging along the rain was now getting pretty heavy but that wasn’t the issue really. The big problem was the amount of lightning and thunder around, with the AAWT basically tracking along a ridge line along here it wasn’t the ideal place to be with lightning all around. With the storm reaching what I hoped was a bit of a crescendo I took cover for awhile crawling into my big plastic bag for a bit of protection. After around 40 minutes, with lightning and thunder still crashing uncomfortably close to me I decided that I may as well head off as really I was just as much chance as getting struck by lightning while on the move as I was sitting here.
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Re joining the AAWT on Tabletop Trail, the weather was closing in on me now.
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I managed to get one photo down to Lake Eucumbene before putting the DSLR away in it's dry bag for awhile.
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Tabletop Trail
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I was slowly arcing my way around to eventually cross the flanks of Tabletop Mountain.
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| Things got a little grim this morning. |
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Trudging on the track was now two rivulets of flowing water, I was walking up steam or down stream depending on the slope. I’ve done a lot of walking in dodgy weather over the years, from blizzards in the highest of our mountains to baking hot days in the desert in summer, but never have I been as concerned with my own safety as I was this morning with the lightning all around me. With the approaching Tabletop Mountain looming ahead out of the cloud the storm raged on, there would be no climbing this peak today, something that was becoming fairly common on this walk it seems.
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With lightning flashing around me I was more than a little concerned...
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Even with the dodgy weather around the scenery was still pretty good, well in a water logged, soft focus kind of a way.
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It's not the easiest walking when the tracks like this, walk in the ruts and even gortex lined boots get soaked pretty quickly, walking on the uneven grass along the middle is hard work on the ankles though.
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| Tabletop Mountain, I think I'll give the climb a miss today. |
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Finally as I rounded Tabletop Mountain and dropped into a bit of a grassy saddle the storm started to break a bit, it’s funny but when I was out in this kind of weather I got hyper sensitive to any change in the conditions. By the time I’d shuffled another kilometre to meet Four Mile Hut Trail there were patches of blue sky emerging, my mood once again lifting with the cloud. Four Mile Hut Trail doesn’t actually head to Four Mile Hut, although there is a refuge a couple of kilometres down there in the shape of
Broken Dam Hut, with the weather now on the improve though I gave this detour a miss, it would of been handy a couple of hours ago though.
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By early afternoon the rain was starting to break a little.
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As I dropped down to pass the old gold mining diggings at Nine Mile Creek the rain stopped altogether. There is a large open cut scar on the side of the hill below the AAWT and near the creek their is a little evidence of the old mining history, although with the goldfield dating back to the 1860’s most of the old gold mining history has now been reclaimed by nature. Tabletop Trail now continued it’s gently undulating journey northwards, I was now starting to get a few glimpses to the grassy slopes of the Mt Selwyn Ski Resort in the distance. Now I’m not normally happy to see a ski resort but I figured that with the resort now within sight I’d probably get a mobile signal. So after reaching the turnoff down to Four Mile Hut I dropped my pack for awhile and had a bit of a break, pulling out my phone I did indeed have a signal and while I was happy enough to get a message through to Sam that I was still going OK, I was a little more perturbed to see that it looked like a pretty serious weather event was heading my way in a few days. It seemed that a lot of rain was going to be falling on me and a little rough calculations had me thinking that I wouldn’t be able to avoid it, the best I could hope for would be to go fairly hard and try and get across the rivers in the Australian Capital Territory before the rain came and cut me off, my days of ambling along with no real time constraints were now over by the look of it.
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Dropping down to cross Nine Mile Creek, there is some good camping here.
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Nine Mile Creek, if you poke around a bit you can find some old gold mining relics around here.
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When the 2003 fires came through here the did a lot of damage, the country is still struggling to recover.
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At least I didn't have to go far searching out water on this AAWT walk.
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| Mt Selwyn Ski Resort is not that far from the AAWT along here. |
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Pulling on my pack again I dropped down the old grassy track towards Four Mile Creek. When Mr Chapman researched his guide book this intersection wasn’t signposted but now days it’s not only sign posted but there is also a fairly obvious side track down to Four Mile Hut, a bit over a kilometre off the official AAWT route. The pad dropped to cross one of the arms of Four Mile Creek before climbing over a low spur and dropping down towards another arm of Four Mile Creek, the rustic Four Mile Hut coming into view as I emerged from the scrub. This is the site of the old Four Mile Gold Diggings which date back to the 1860’s. Dropping down to the creek the old water races and mullock heaps are still fairly obvious even today.
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There is a clear well marked track over to Four Mile Hut now days.
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Four Mile Diggings
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Four Mile Hut
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Four Mile Hut is tiny but was a nice spot for me to spend the rest of the day.
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| Conditions outside were somewhat variable! |
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Four Mile Hut is also a gold mining relic, this beautiful old hut was built by a gold fossicker named Bob Hughes. For the rest of the day I got to experience a bit of what Mr Hughes would of experienced back in the 1930’s when he lived out here, his charming old hut providing warmth and shelter as a few storms raged through. Sitting on the bed (this hut really only sleeps one comfortably) watching the rain come down outside, getting up every now and again to stoke the fire and make something to eat, my candles flickered a soft yellow light on everything, life was pretty sweet!
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